It wasn’t long ago when Houston Texans kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn was not well-beloved within the team’s fan base.
The third-year placekicker started the season cold, missing four extra point attempts and three field goals by the mid-way point of the year. However, recently, he’s hot.
Since Week 9, Fairbairn is playing the part of one the NFL’s best kickers. Though he missed an extra point and two field goals (one being a 58-yarder in London, the other a 43-yarder), he has not missed a kick of any kind since Week 11.
“In the beginning, he had a couple of misses,” Texans coach Bill O’Brien said on Thursday. “But he’s definitely turned it over around. I think in the Tampa Bay game, I would say one of the main reasons why we won was because of how we kicked the ball.”
In the Texans latest bout — a 23-20 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Fairbairn was perfect. He made all three of his extra points, both field goal kicks and even punted once, downing the Bucs at their 10-yard-line.
“Ka’imi’s kickoffs, for example, were very accurate and placed exactly where we wanted to place them,” O’Brien said. “Then obviously he made his field goals and PATs, which are points on the board, which is huge.”
Fairbairn’s early kicking woes sparked a yearn among the Texans’ fan base to release him and find a new option. However, Houston stuck with him and are now reaping the benefits of the results that they expected of him coming into the 2019 campaign.
In 2018, in his second-year in the Texans’ organization, Fairbairn led the NFL in scoring with 150 and field goals made with 37. Though he won’t boast the same achievements in 2019, it’s fair to say that O’Brien and Co. are happy to have him on the roster.
“Ka’imi’s a very good kicker,” O’Brien said. “And we are glad he’s on our team.”